The disappearance of Victorian mum Samantha Murphy is now being treated as suspicious.
The news comes 10 days after the mother-of-three disappeared after leaving her Ballarat East home to go jogging in a nearby state forest.
Throughout their investigation police have maintained they do not believe anything sinister happened to the 51-year-old, however on Wednesday Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said while there were no developments, the case was “suspicious”.
“We keep saying ‘it’s not suspicious’ but when someone’s been missing for this period of time (and) we have no trace, well, clearly there must be some suspicions there,” he said during a press conference.
“It’s certainly unusual when we haven’t been able to locate any trace of her or any other evidence within that period of time.
“It’s suspicious, whether that means there’s foul play involved, or not, I don’t know, but obviously detectives are investigating a matter where a woman’s been missing for a significant period of time.”
Patton also confirmed police had “no leads” in relation to what happened to Murphy which he said was concerning.
He also clarified the Missing Persons Squad had been involved in the investigation from its inception.
“We knew this had the potential to be a significant and prolonged investigation when we couldn’t find any trace of Samantha early on and so the missing person squad has been in the meetings … been aware of the search right from the start,” he said.
“This has been really thoroughly investigated from the start.”
Police had been leading an extensive search for Murphy in the nearby areas around her home, however on Saturday it was announced they would be scaling back the search.
“The investigative stage of the investigation continues and as any new information comes to hand identifying areas of interest, the search will be scaled up,” police said.
Former Victoria Police homicide detective Charlie Bezzina theorised the decision likely meant that police had a particular line of inquiry they were looking into.
“The fact that they’ve scaled back the search is indicative that they’re looking at a particular line of inquiry,” Bezzina told Sunrise on Tuesday.
“They’re not gonna air that, they’ll keep it close to their chest and continue to say that it’s nothing sinister or criminal at this stage, but I think everything’s on the table.”
(9 news)
